It serves the powerful to have everyone (or as many people as possible) declared "mentally ill" for two main reasons, (A) and (B).
(A) Firstly, labeling many people as "mentalyl ill" makes the powerful a lot of money. To have everyone pay for the drugs designed to treat such "illnesses" is a huge money-making racket that almost all other first-world nations have abolished through nationalized universal healthcare and through strict drug pricing regulations. This is not to say that many psychiatric medications can and do help people who have any number of conditions, but rather to point towards the over prescribing of drugs and the over diagnosis of various mental conditions. What were once seen as differences in people are now given myriad clinical names.
Once, someone who was socially awkward and advanced at mathematics was just a "nerd" but now may be labeled as having "Aspbergers syndrome". Where someone who was once thought of as distinctly neat and orderly was once just a "clean freak" but now may be labeled as having "Obsessive Compulsive Disorder".
Someone who spent weeks or months in a down phase was once simply "melancholy" but may now be labeled as someone labeled as having "Major Depression". A moody individual may have been just that, "moody" but now may be rushed into a diagnosis of "Bipolar Disorder".
As someone who has bipolar disorder myself, I can attest to its seriousness and problematic nature. This is precisely why I think there should be stringent rules for diagnosing someone as having a serious condition such as bipolar disorder as opposed to the normal human tendency towards periods of depression and periods of happiness.
The critical distinction between a serious mental problem and a non-problematic mental trait that is abnormal must be maintained. The push towards labeling every behavior that is different as some form of illness must be avoided. But, in a country where prescription medications and psychiatric care are a massive money-making enterprise with doctors and pharmaceutical companies profiting alike, there will be a problem with overprescribing and a problem with hastily FDA approved meds that have unknown side-effects.
(B) Secondly, and most importantly, labeling someone "mentally ill" takes power away from them as they are now seen by segments of society as damaged and sick. This is often the perspective of the public sphere as their opinion is shaped and manipulated by the powerful who control the media and medical establishment. A "mentally ill" person is not, it is often assumed, fit for any number of professions, positions, or responsibilities.
This modern tendency, to disenfranchise those with some psychological disorder, is in direct conflict with truth and a world history where some of the most courageous and notable figures would all qualify as mentally ill. Someone may suffer from a disorder that is minor and easily treatable or be catatonically depressed and in a state of paralysis. Why should everyone with a massive spectrum of conditions all be labeled as "mentally ill"?
It is my belief that all humans who are intelligent enough to be aware of being aware are burdened with knowledge that, if understood clearly, makes us all "mentally ill". All truly open and aware mature human minds have at least contemplated suicide, though admitting this is often seen as a weakness of some kind. Existential awareness is a psychological disorder that we must face as a species and as individual beings.
Here is an article from Salon.com that highlights the fact that many of the greatest figures in history suffered from various mental issues. The article laments the modern political dismissal of anyone who qualifies as having a psychological disorder as someone who is unfit for many positions in the contemporary public sphere.
Mental illness should not necessarily be seen as something ugly and problematic, but often just as something different and, in some cases, something that can bring diversity and beauty to the world. Without those who are touched by some form of non-normal (whatever that means) mental disposition, we would have much less art, music, mathematics, philosophy, and science.
This is not to make light of or lessen what is often an absolute hell for those who suffer from various forms of depression or other mental illnesses. From my own experience, no pain is greater than that which makes the individual feel like a hollow wasteland of negative thoughts and feelings. Only those afflicted can know what it is like and judgement about those who are afflicted should be kept to an absolute minimum.
In societies where there is no help available for those who are in need of counseling or medication, there will be many more problems with people who are in need of such treatment. As a society becomes more cruel and unjust in economic terms and in terms of labeling and ostracizing those with mental problems, there will be more and more people with such issues.
Mental illness often arises from unneccessary violence in unjust wars, inhumane prisons, and in working conditions where a living wage is absent. Stress and unhappiness, over time, will cause mental illness where none would have existed and many of the conditions that create stress and unhappiness are the products of bad governments or social structures.
Even the term, "illness" of the mind implies that someone is lesser or broken when they may, in fact, simply be different. Mental properties and differences are not necessarily illnesses but this definition serves both the political structure and the psycho-pharmacological complex that makes money off the sick or ill.
Anyone who questions the government or the unjust accepted social norms in many modern societies is labeled as "disturbed" or "crazy"- which is often just more Orwellian brainwashing and scare tactics to maintain the status quo. This is not to say that some people are not dangerous in a way that is unhelpful to society and there should be a strong distinction made between free thinking, angry critics and those who lash out pointlessly and violently.
Why, for example, must we genitally mutillate our male children here in America or in Jewish communities? Why, in Africa or other places, must females be genitally mutillated? Often, cultures are so attached to such customs that any opposition to them is seen as grounds for insanity or ostracism from the population.
If one focuses on what makes someone sane or not, other than in instances of violence, I think everyone should be free to chose their beliefs- be they accepted or rejected by "experts". And for those who are mentally ill and prone to violence, whether they be Dick Cheney or Tony Blair, they should be restrained from manipulating and hurting other human beings.
I found this to be a good place with good intentions: bringchange2mind
The mental disposition of an individual has no bearing on the soundness or quality of their argument. Some very intelligent and apparently mentally balanced people make bad arguments and make bad decisions. Likewise, those who are mentally ill can make good arguments and good decisions.
Mental illness is one of the most culturally relative properties and, I would point out that mental illness flourishes in ill societies, ill nations, and in ill environments. If we are being poisoned by our food, air, and water- both intentionally and unintentionally, then mental illness will surely rise. In healthy societies there is less war inside the minds of its citizens as there would be less war in the country's dealings with the world.
A mentally ill person often is at war with him or herself and, to some degree, others around them. Similarly, a mentally ill country is typically at war with others and its own people. In some places and countries, the mentally ill are the spiritually revered. In some instances, the mentally ill are simply the gifted and special. Simply the words we chose to use to describe people frames the darkness or brightness of society's relationship to the mentally ill.
We should be aware that the silliness of "experts" once had us believe that homosexuality and left-handedness were mental illnesses. To various sick-minded supremacists around the world, being of a various ethnicity or race is considered an "illness".
The only real illness is our intolerance, racism, arrogance, and our neverending tendancy to create the "other" and group ourselves into some superior category such as "I'm white". Oooh, congratulations for being born you uneducated white-supremacist trailer trash. Just because you are poor and you think your life sucks, there is no reason to cling to the illusions and delusions of racial anything.
But humans are stupid, dumb animals who group and group some more and this tendancy must never be overlooked or thought conquered because such groupings are the seeds of all genocide and war. Whether you be German or Jewish, Japanese or Chinese, American or Argentinian, thinking you are the superior form of human is perhaps the pinnacle of evil and illness. So much of the world is ill.
Throughout history, there have been those homogenous and fascist nations who dispose of their mentally ill (and homosexuals, poor, minorities, this or that religious sect, skin color or national origin, or anyone they deem less than perfect) and there are those who both do and do not have a mental illness who deny the existence of mental illness.
I have met more people who are mentally ill that deny there is any such thing than any other group. And, the evil human tendency towards self-superiority and having no empathy or compassion is always present in human history. Hitler, Bush/Cheney, and many other psychopathic leaders throughout history have displayed the ultimate signs of complete detachment from reality and concern for human life to the point the exterminate it in order to control people.
I am mentally ill. I must say, though, I am not nearly as mentally ill as most of the people we are currently being led by in the political sphere. It is often hard for people to openly talk about their mental problems and this is often the result of real or percieved stigma.
I think it is important to write and speak about my condition because I still see a society where people are ashamed to be who they are. I see small minded people everywhere in America. I see uneducated masses attempting to frame mental illness in terms used in medieval theology. I see other humans denying the suffering of others even exists at all because they are so arrogant to think that the world for another could not possibly be different from their own perception.
Also, anyone who has any mental problems or illness or disorder need not be discredited because of it. In fact, many of the most creative people and greatest leaders in history have dealt with some form of mental illness. It is only in modern times, when the media and pharmaceutical companies attempt to frame mental illness in a negative and coercive way, that we have seen such illnesses defined and negatively framed by large segments of humans.
Abraham Lincoln, Issac Newton, Winston Churchill, Vincet Van Gogh, Jackson Pollack, Edgar Allen Poe, and countless other great figures in history have suffered from some degree of mental illness. However, recent times have made these disorders seem like a reason to discredit people or not take them seriously. No matter who says or writes anything, the quality of the argument should be considered only. It is not so important whether the mind that writes or paints or makes music is sound but if the argument makes sense or the paintings are good or the music is interesting.
I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (formerly known as manic-depression) in 2002. I have created a bipolar disorder topic page where I discuss the details of my own experience with it.
One interesting note is that, if subjected to modern diagnosis, many of the so-called "Founding Fathers" of America would likely be classified as bipolar or mentally ill because they obviously got angry and overthrew their government.
I would say that everyone has mental problems to some degree or another. No one has a perfect mind.
However, a mental illness, in my opinion, constitutes a condition that, to some degree, interferes with an individual's ability to live. A mental illness can be managed with cognitive processes or medication.
The most severe category, in my opinion, would be those with a mental disability. A mental disability is a mental illness that is severe enough to cause serious difficulties with an individual's ability to live normally. Disabilities can come from illness and disabilities can sometimes revert into a lesser illness. It is not often that an illness or disability can be alleviated to a degree that it is no longer a problem of some sort.
Being mentally ill can mean anything from moderate forms of anxiety that do not completely hinder normal life to catatonic states that totally disable the afflicted person. Mental illness refers to any number of conditions that are problematic for both the person who is suffering from the illness and for those who are affected by them.
For those who do not consider themselves mentally ill, the afflictions can seem as unreal to them as color is for a blind person who was born blind. Before I became severely mentally ill, I was unable to relate to those close to me that were struggling with various mental conditions. It is easy but false to think that mentall illness is somehow a form of weakness on the part of the afflicted person's mind.
Rather, mental illness is more like cancer or diabetes, in that, it is a condition of some sort that has been brought on by genetic predisposition or neurological trauma caused by stress, injury, or disease. However, unlike diabetes and cancer, there is a stigma attached to mental disorders that continues to inhibit those who are afflicted and society in general, from making further progress.
Also, cancer and diabetes are diseases that do not infect and affect the very essence of the person who is ill. Who I am, as a mentally ill person, is sick.
It is not just my body, but me and my mind, that can not function or cope. Mental illness is hell because it is a constant mental war in which battles can be won, but the fighting never ends.
No one chooses to become mentally ill and, if they do, they were mentally ill from the beginning. Most drug use on the part of the mentally ill is, in my opinion, not the source cause of mental illness but rather used in an attempt to relieve mental illness. This is not to discount the fact that certain chemicals can and do cause neurological and mental damage.
I have no doubt that the categorizations of modern psychology could be refined in a way that is beneficial to our understanding of mental illnesses.
For example, borderline personality disorder, multiple personality disorder, and bipolar disorder are all conditions that ultimately result in a great variety of moods or personalities depending on the state of the condition.
If my bipolar disorder makes me rather elated for periods of time and I were to begin to think of this elated mood as a separate personality, I would fit all three categories to some degree.
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Because of the stigma of being mentally ill, many of those who suffer, do so in silence. There are doctors, lawyers, politicians, scientists and teachers who take some form of medication or who suffer without treatment.
If some of these people, in some of these professions that involve a degree of discriminatory politics, were to reveal their conditions, their careers could be negatively affected.
As in the case of John Nash, the central figure of the movie A Beautiful Mind, many of the brightest minds in history have some degree of mental illness. Artists, writers, scientists, philosophers, and musicians abound with mental illnesses as the link between creativity and mental illness seems to be more and more clear. A degree of depression, for an intelligent person, seems almost inevitable.
Perhaps there are certain fields of endeavor that should be off limits for those with mental problems, especially those professions that require the potential use of force. How many of our soldiers are mentally ill, not because they were ill to begin with, but because of the stresses of long-term, questionable war and three, four, five, or six deployments? Even in Vietnam soldiers did not have to serve so long and so consitently.
Mental illness robs people of their friends, their families, their personalities, and their control. It is crucial that those who suffer from some form of mental illness are given help. In America, often, the mentally ill end up homeless and abandoned by society because the resources are not available to help them. They eventually turn to drugs, alcohol, or suicide for relief.
When people abandon their relationships with those who are mentally ill, it is understandable. But, the mentally ill person will often become angry and resentful of those friends and relatives who no longer wish to deal with the difficulties involved in continuing a relationship. Mental illness often manifests in pushing people away deliberately because it is easier than letting others see the internal mess that is their mind.
My mental illness has, from time to time, made me angry and resentful because no one, including myself, is fully equipped to understand or deal with it.
One of the greatest problems with being mentally ill is the occassional ability to convince yourself that you are cured or that you were never ill at all.
